The True Story of M. Butterfly; The Spy Who Fell in Love With a Shadow

Published: August 15, 1993

(Page 12 of 12)

The lawyer picks up a few of the papers to which Boursicot is alleged to have had access and reads some sections to the court: requests to the home office for a rear-view mirror and a cheese tray; excerpts from the dispatches of the Ambassador.

"The yak, to the Mongolians, is what the automobile is to the Americans," the Ambassador has reported.

Leclerc puts the papers down on his desk.

"Is this the stuff of espionage?" he asks. "Do you really think what we have here hurt the diplomatic interests of France? This case is absolutely at the bottom of the ladder in the spying world."

The jury retires to consider the espionage charges. One hour later, Boursicot and Shi are each sentenced to six years in jail.

In April 1987, after serving less than a year in prison, Shi Pei Pu receives a presidential pardon. His imprisonment is an embarrassment to the Chinese Government, and President Mitterand, according to an adviser, Regis Debray, seems to believe it is "very silly" to endanger relations between China and France over such an unimportant case.

Bernard Boursicot is pardoned four months later.

IN A SMALL PRISON hospital room outside Paris, sometime after the arrest of Bernard Boursicot in the summer of 1983, a Chinese man of middle age arrives for a court-ordered physical examination. He is a slightly built man, 5 feet 4 inches tall, 146 pounds. His face is smooth; he is balding. Prison conspires against a man's self-worth, but this man's dignity, even knowing what is before him, is unimpaired. He carries himself in such a way one knows he is not just another desperate emigre, fallen into some illicit game, but a person of importance: a member of a ruling family, a great actor, a master of his craft.

The details of his case, which have appeared in the newspapers, are known to everyone in the hospital. There is talk of a homosexual liaison, espionage, sexual duplicity. Many jokes have been made at the expense of this man. The written instructions of the court to the doctors, by contrast, are matter-of-fact:

Determine if the prisoner, in addition to his masculine organs, has external female organs. If he does not, determine whether he might have had female organs in the past.

Determine whether the prisoner shows any trace of surgical intervention of the sexual organs. If so, make a report of the nature of that intervention.

Determine whether the prisoner, as he has claimed, has the ability to withdraw his penis and testicles into his body cavity.

Examine the prisoner's anus for signs of sodomization.

The doctors make their examination. They find the prisoner is a man, with normal sexual organs that show no trace of surgical intervention. The anus shows no signs of sodomization. And while the patient has complained of chest pains in the night and has a history of heart problems, his heartbeat now is normal.

Then, as the examination is ending, the prisoner, without being asked, says that he would like to explain something to the doctors. Easily, smoothly, he pushes his testicles up into his body cavity. The skin of the scrotal sack hangs slack, like curtains. The man now pushes his penis between his legs, toward his back, bisecting the skin of the scrotum, and squeezes his legs tightly together. The penis is hidden, while the skin of the scrotum resembles the vaginal lips, beneath a triangle of pubic hair. Pushed between the empty scrotal sac, the penis has also created a small cavity so that shallow penetration is possible.

A naive or credulous lover, looking at this man now, might believe he was looking at a woman. Of course, one could not look too closely. It was only illusion. But 90 percent of love, even a man of science will volunteer, is illusion. In defense of love, a story we love, a person we love, is there anyone among us who has not closed his eyes and refused to see?

Photos: Shi Pei Pu was 26 and Bernard Boursicot 20 when this photo was taken in 1965. Shi in Paris in 1988, arrayed in the finery of a Chinese opera star. "I used to fascinate both men and women," he says. "What I was and what they were didn't matter." (Photograph by Peter Serling.)(pg. 30-31); Shi Pei Pu as a man in Beijing in 1965, left. At the opera, Shi played both male and female roles. (Associated Press); Boursicot's embassy ID card. (pg. 32); Shi Pei Pu in China: "That story of the butterfly -- it is my story, too." (Philippe Bouchon/Agence France-Presse)(pg. 36); Boursicot with Shi Du Du, whom he called Bertrand, and with Shi Pei Pu's mother. In a photo from China, Shi Du Du holds a postcard asking Boursicot not to forget him. Boursicot and Shi on trial for espionage in France in 1986. (pg. 37); Shi Du Du and Shi Pei Pu before a performance in Paris. "I lost everything -- apartments, cars, a beautiful life," Boursicot says. "But it's better to be cheated than to cheat." (Photographs by Peter Serling)